Medway Historical Society

Black History Month

Jethro Jones
1732-1828
Jethro Jones was an early black plane maker from 1764-1767. He apprenticed under Cesar Chelor in Wrentham where he once lived. Chelor is another early black plane maker of notoriety.
Jethro was born in 1732 or 1733 though his birthplace is unknown. Jones appeared in 1758-59 in Medway on a list of inhabitant soldiers in the French and Indian Wars. There are some uncertainties about whether he lived exclusively in Medway during the early 1760s as three enlistment documents from 1761, 1762 and 1763 have his respective residences as Medfield, Medway and Medford. On poll tax lists he next appears in Wrentham from 1764-1766.
On May 2, 1767 he married Judith (Juda) King in Wrentham. They went on to have 5 children together and lived in Holliston according to tax records in 1771. This tax record stands out as Sambo Freeman (from our Spotlight post last week) was also listed in Holliston at that time. Sambo was also noted to be a tool and plane maker more senior than Jethro. Jethro name appears in Wrentham, Medway, and Holliston records underneath Sambo’s name. Sambo is listed with acreage, a house with a shop, and farm income while Jethro does not. Jethro does have a cow and a pig and was probably living with Sambo and using his shop as evidence of his planes marked I /Iones / Living In /Holliston. Planes from his time in Medway and Wrentham are also marked this way. Jethro used his planes to make ornate moldings.
Jones listed into the Continental Army in May 1777 and served until Dec 1783 enlisting from Leicester, MA where he had moved sometime between 1772 and 1777. Jethro served in the Revolutionary War for six years and two months all but a month or two. In an enlistment document Jones is listed as age 45, black, 5’6”, and his occupation as a tool maker.
Jethro Jones then moved to Blandford, MA in 1790 where he spent the remainder of his life on farmland given to him by his son. He passed away on Jan 12, 1828 age the age of 95 or 96 and rests in the Jethro Jones Cemetery named for him. In the year 2000 the street that the Jones Cemetery is on (once called Negro Hill Rd) was renamed Jethro Jones Rd.
A plow plane made by Jethro Jones is in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington DC.

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